Embedded Finance
The emergence of digital commerce has opened the door for us into a new age within financial services: embedded finance. This agility allows for faster and easier integration of financial products and services into non-financial platforms, delivering a cohesive customer experience.
For example, e-commerce merchants are elevating their checkout experiences by serving up buy-now-pay-later solutions, credit cards, and loyalty-based rewards within the check-out process.
On the other end of the spectrum, similar needs are being addressed by on-demand platforms (such as ride-sharing apps and freelance marketplaces) to service both consumers and providers with digital wallets, payment solutions, or even wealth management tools.
So, what is embedded finance? What are the benefits that embedded finance has to offer? Find out more in this article. Read on about it.
What is Embedded Finance?
Embedded finance is one evolving phenomenon that implants financial services into all the other non-finance platforms. It helps businesses to provide financial products within their ecosystem instead of sending customers out to third-party banks. This has two benefits; it not only adds value to the customer experience but also allows for additional revenue streams.
How Does This Embedded Finance Work?
The core of embedded finance lies in partnerships. Financial institutions work together with non-financial companies to provide a variety of financial products and services. For example, a bank might launch in-app lenders or insurance with a ride-sharing app.
It replaces a clunky process with an incredibly frictionless user experience, customers can go onto their favorite platform and receive financial services without ever having left the app with which they interact multiple times daily.
Benefits of Embedded Finance
There are lots of benefits to embedded finance for businesses and consumers. Businesses all over the world can benefit from this chance to grow their income streams further while deepening customer rapport. The collection and analysis of customer data help companies personalize financial products to suit individual behaviors.
On the other hand, embedded finance empowers consumers with easier, time-saving experiences. The same platform offers the possibility of getting financial services, which reduces the need for multiple accounts and logins. All in all, embedded finance helps in simplifying the journey all along.
Examples of Embedded Finance
Embedded finance is already making waves across various industries. In the retail sector, ‘buy now, pay later’ options offered at checkout are a prime example.
E-commerce platforms are partnering with financial institutions to provide flexible payment options to customers. Financial institutions are entering into partnerships with e-commerce platforms to enable flexible payment methods.
In travel, that means airlines and agencies swooping in to offer the option of insurance or a loan based on loyalty points. But surprisingly, embedded finance even in healthcare is quickly becoming more common through patient financing options to insurance integration.
Embedded Finance – The Next Big Wave
You might wonder what the future holds for embedded finance. With the advancement in technology, we can hope to see some more interesting applications of this concept. And the integration with AI and blockchain, we can see an even higher caliber of customer experience as well as data security.
But to support the long-term development of embedded finance, regulatory hurdles, and data privacy complaints may have to be addressed.
In short, embedded finance is changing the financial world – providing a frictionless more practical way for both businesses and consumers to interact with financial services. There is a lot more that we can expect from embedded finance in the years to come.